


A Sky Full of Stars

by MyTARDISsenseIsTingling



Category: The Amazing Spider-Man (Movies - Webb)
Genre: Bittersweet Ending, F/M, Sad, Short, don't ever let go, feels warning, i think i see you, in a sky full of stars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-30
Updated: 2014-05-30
Packaged: 2018-01-27 14:23:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1713803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MyTARDISsenseIsTingling/pseuds/MyTARDISsenseIsTingling
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peter Parker, still dealing with the events of The Amazing Spider-man 2 two years later, has a long overdue and much-needed conversation.</p><p>Thanks to Coldplay for the inspiration :)</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Sky Full of Stars

There is no such thing as a quiet night in New York City, but for some reason this particular night had a certain calm to it, despite the usual honking of horns and occasional ambulance siren. A silent figure swung above the rest of the citizens, patrolling for trouble, but it appeared his services were not needed tonight. Even the crime circuit was quiet.

The swinging figure landed gracefully atop a church to rest on a ledge next to a gargoyle, blending into the shadows despite his bright blue and red costume. He leaned back and stretched out casually, letting his long lanky legs dangle over the edge. Then, once comfortable, he reached behind him to yank his mask off over his head, leaving his brown hair disheveled, sticking up in every direction. He ran his hand through it absentmindedly and sighed, looking up. This perch was a favorite of his. It was secluded enough that he could release himself from the anonymity of the mask without having to worry about anyone looking up to see that Spider-man was actually Peter Parker. 

These days, he liked releasing himself from anonymity. It was so much lonelier behind the mask than it used to be. 

The other thing he liked best about this particular perch was that from it, he had the perfect view of the city and the sky above. The lights of the New York were so bright that they blocked out most of the stars in the sky, but enough celestial lights managed to poke through so that Peter could imagine the rest. With his mind, he could remove the cloud cover and see into the vast multitudes that he knew were there, hiding behind it all, just like he’d seen from the giant telescopes at the planetarium. They’d become a strange source of comfort for him over the past two years. He liked how they put everything in perspective. Sometimes he felt like he was carrying the entire world on his shoulders, and he needed a reminder of how small his problems really were, in the grand scheme of things. Those thousands of stars probably had thousands of other planets with their own problems floating around them.

As Peter’s eyes traced the patterns of the white lights above him, a sudden flash of bright blue eyes and an infectious smile danced across his vision. He blinked and shook his head vigorously. 

“There I go again,” he said out loud, smiling sadly to himself. Then he looked back up to address the stars.

“I just thought I saw you up there again, that’s all. I know it’s stupid. But I sometimes just… feel like you’re there, you know?”

The stars twinkled silently. Peter shook his head to himself.

“Maybe I just wish it. But whatever. It makes me feel better, so I’m just going to go with it. I keep expecting it to get easier but it doesn’t, so I’ll take what I can get at this point.”

He paused again, his eyes fixed on the sky, as a look of conviction suddenly crossed his face. 

“Two years without you, and they’ve been the hardest two years of my life. Only thing I can think of that was just as bad was losing Uncle Ben, but at least then you were there.”

Peter’s eyes were bright and his voice was shaking now, but he kept talking.

“You made it all easier, Gwen. And I know it’s selfish and I know the whole thing was what got you killed in the end and it was my fault but… being able to share this with you…”

Peter’s voice trailed off and he picked up his mask from the ledge next to him again, looking into the blank white eyes staring back at him.

“It’s cheesy, but no matter how dark things got, you were always the light. And the darker it got, the lighter you got. And ever since… that… night… I feel like I’ve just been stumbling around in the dark. Until... I mean…”

His voice broke and he stopped to clear it quickly. He seemed to be at a loss for how to say what he wanted to say next. The stars continued to shine down on him calmly, and he turned his attention back to them.

“I guess I just miss you a lot, is what I’m saying. But I met this girl today. She moved in next door, actually. She’s an actress. Mary Jane Watson. She’s a lot different than you, but something tells me you’d like her anyway.”

The sad smile was back on his face as the small pinpricks of light in the sky shone in his soft brown eyes.

“All I know is I still love you. I love you so much it hurts. But when I was talking to Mary Jane… I don’t know, for a little while it didn’t hurt so much anymore. And I don’t know if I should feel better or worse about that.”

The stars yielded no answer.

“I feel like I still don’t really deserve it. Or I’m just not ready to let you go, I can’t really tell anymore. Honestly, no one is ever going to be like you, Gwen. Nobody. You lit up the path. You made everything clear. And even if by some long shot I actually did wind up with someone new, it could never be the same. I can’t ever share my secret with anybody ever again, I know it. I can’t ever let this happen again. So even if I’m technically ‘with’ someone, I’m still going to be alone... forever.”

The words hung hollowly in the air as he said them, letting the reality sink in as he finally admitted this worry aloud to himself. The thought had been dancing around the edges of his subconscious practically since the night Gwen Stacey died. Peter closed his eyes, wincing as the pain of the realization washed over him.

“I guess this is part of that whole ‘responsibility’ thing Uncle Ben was talking about. It just sucks, you know? I’m Spider-man. I don’t get the same things everybody else gets. But… at least I had it for awhile.”

Peter fell quiet again, but a small smile slowly began to play around his lips. When he looked back up, the smile had spread all across his face, lighting it up.

“My uncle the compulsive liar, the chocolate house, the flowers, the branzino, the late nights out, hiding in that closet, the message on the bridge… The truth is, except for the very end, I wouldn’t do any of it differently. I don’t know if that’s bad to think, but it’s true. Everything we had, Gwen, those were the best times of my life. The good and the bad. I guess I’d rather have had it once than never at all. I just… I wish you hadn’t… That I hadn’t…”

His head dropped again, and now he was staring down at the street instead. From up here, he could see all the people and cars on the streets below, though they all looked more like toys than anything else. He protected them every day. He just hadn’t been able to protect the one that meant the most to him.

Peter grabbed his mask and stood back up on the ledge, turning his eyes skyward one more time. The stars had been so steady in their positions all night, it was hard to believe that every one of them was a giant burning ball of gas billions of light years away. Some of them had just been born, some were in the prime of life, some were dying, and some had already gone out years before their light had stopped travelling to Earth’s atmosphere. But from here, they were calm. It all depended on how you looked at them.

“Everything I do is still for you Gwen. And I’m going to keep going because of you. I won’t let go. I promise.”

He stood there for a moment longer, the stars in his eyes, then Peter Parker put his mask on and disappeared back into Spider-man, swinging away into the night.


End file.
